In 1994, Yi began his first journey to Beijing. In 2008, he went abroad for the first time to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, following trips to major Asian countries. He made it a goal to travel around the world before he was 80. 

Yi once flew 15 hours to South Africa, walked 12 hours from Xiangtan city in Hunan to Shaoshan, Hunan — a distance of 56 kilometers. 

He said his most impressive travel experience was a trip to Vietnam in 2013 in a group of four special friends — a blind massage therapist, a disabled man, a recently recovered lung cancer patient and a man who had lost his spleen because of an accident. The latter person is Yi himself.

The four team members looked after each other on the six-day trip and had closer relations afterward, he said. 

He always travels with friends and family members, and has even become an organizer, planning everything in advance. He said he has made hundreds of new friends on trips. 

When asking about his next trip, he said: "The South China Sea sounds like a good place."